APR 7104 Professional Digital Media Skills Assignment Brief Spring 2025 | RAUL

Course Description:

The module is designed to enhance students’ skills in the use of online media. It is split between two main assessments, one focused on research and development, the other on online media practice. For their practical assessment, students have to create an individual media project that sets out to use the potential of the net and new media technologies in an informed and innovative way. Students will be able to focus on PR, advertising and/or journalism but will be expected to display an understanding of all these disciplines. For the more conceptual assessment, students have to do research and development work, coming up with an idea for an innovative online media product/strategy, which they then sell via a short presentation. Students in this module are also required to keep a log documenting the work they do on their assessments. At the end of the module, they draw on the notes kept on their blog for a summary critical report, which evaluates the work done on the module and summarises the main things learnt.

Prerequisites: A Public Relations and Journalism and MA Advertising and Public Relations students only

Aims and Objectives:

• Develop a complex, professional understanding of different ways to create content online for websites, blogs, social media, mobile platforms, and other online outlets.
• Develop an individual online media project that uses online/new media tools.
• Do increasingly high-level R&D work in online media and develop ideas for online media products or social media strategies that could be applied by real-world channels, sites, and media outlets.
• Present online media ideas with increasing professionalism and confidence
• Critically analyse academic titles, journals and articles; industry multimedia stories; web sites, blogs and online media outlets and apply the knowledge gained from that analysis.
• Reflect upon the context in which online communication is conducted and its implications.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, successful students should be able to:

1. Analyse critically industry online content on a variety of platforms and use that analysis to develop a high-level strategy for their own work on the net, both practical and conceptual
2. Produce accurate, attractive online content, effectively targeted and to tight deadlines, made to high technical standards.
3. Use more complicated and sophisticated software packages and online media tools in an
   increasingly professional way.
4. Critically appraise the different types of online media/social media and demonstrate an ability to apply that knowledge to their own practical and conceptual work.
5. Present complex ideas for online media products and strategies in an increasingly
   professional way, both in person and online, via blogs and other platforms
6. Combine a creative and professional approach to online media.

Assignment 1: Digital Media Campaign – two parts.

Part 1: Brief and rationale – 25% of the course grade.
Part 2: Final Campaign Review written paper – 45% of the course grade.

Assignment 2: Book Review – 30% of the course grade

Assignment 1: Digital Media Campaign. This is a TWO-PART assignment.

You will research, create, launch and evaluate an integrated digital media campaign of your choosing. Prepare a brief for the campaign including an outline content calendar. Launch the campaign using at least two media channels of your choice, one of which could be a written blog.

Briefed in Week 1/2; agree campaign topic and content calendar in Week 3; campaign go live no later than Week 5-6; and 10-minute presentation of results on 23rd April (week 11). You will need to 6 upload your presentation slides by 23.59 21st April. The final written document to be submitted by 23.59 2nd May.

Part 1. You will choose a topic that you can originate, control and deliver end to end. Write a brief for your recommended topic using the briefing format supplied, including an outline content calendar. The document should be accompanied by a short write-up (up to 750 words max.)

• This should cover your overall rationale for the project, and:
• Why do you think there is a place for your digital campaign – what need is it seeking to fill/fulfil?
• A short pen portrait of your target audience.
• Anything else you think is important and not covered by your brief?
  You will have an individual tutorial in Week 3 to agree on the topic and submit. Show evidence of applying any learning gained from class.

Part 2. Based upon the agreed Part 1 brief and outline content calendar submitted, prepare and launch an integrated digital campaign using at least two media channels of your choosing, one of which could be a written blog. We suggest that across the media used, you should aim for a minimum of 20 posts, combining visual, video, audio, and written posts. You should aim for a minimum of 2000 words for the written posts in total. 

The emphasis should be on the quality of content rather than quantity and how it links to the campaign brief. The activity should be tracked and evaluated against an agreed set of measures. You will present the campaign, including results, to the class in a 10-minute presentation. Please also include the detailed content calendar you created and used for the campaign.

You will also submit an individual written version of your campaign, including all work undertaken. Provide a reflective log of your learning from the exercise, including Part 1. For example, how your brief might have changed as you learned more and what you learned overall. Show evidence of applying any learning gained from the course/critical review of the book review. It should include the content created, where and how you have used AI, the work undertaken as well and the results. The log should also cover your perspective on how the digital campaign/blog could have been improved. 1500 words.

Assignment 2: Book Review

You will be allocated one book drawn from the reading list. You are expected to read the book and write a critical analysis. In addition, you will, as part of a small group, present to the whole class in a 15-minute review. The group needs to clearly communicate what the book:

• Was about overall.
• Critically analyse and summarise the key content.
• What 3 things you learned from it that would be valuable for your fellow students (in terms of digital learning and useful for everyone to take forward in their work and digital marketing futures)
• Identify 1 key question to discuss and get feedback from the class.

We expect each group to plan the presentation carefully so that individual speakers cover separate points in their presentation.

Required Texts:

1. Faroohar, R, Don’t Be Evil: The Case Against Big Tech (Allen Lane, 2019)
2. Kingsnorth, S, Digital Marketing Strategy: An Integrated Approach to Online Marketing (Kogan Page, 3rd edition May 2022
3. Kotler, P. Marketing 5.0: Technology for Humanity (1st Edition, Wiley 2021)
4. Moore, M and Tambini D: Digital Dominance: The Power of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple, (Oxford University Press 2018) * Kindle Version
5. Roetzer, P and Kaput, M: Marketing Artificial Intelligence AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business (Benbella Books 2022)